The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up - critical summary review

You’ve probably heard that adage, “a messy room equals a messy mind,”  and scoffed it off as just another old wives’ tale. Well, for Japanese organizational expert Marie Kondo – described variously as “the decluttering queen,” “a fairy godmother for socks,” and “the most organized woman in the world” – these are words to live by.

In her debut book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” – the “mess-busting bestseller” that “prompted a craze for tidying in homes across the world” – she demonstrates not only why “an organized room equals an organized mind” is true but also how you can achieve it right away.

Interested? In 12 minutes, you’ll know much more!

Why can’t you keep your house in order?

For what reasons are we able to keep our houses in order? Let us answer this question with another question: would you be able to drive your car to work today if you hadn’t taken classes some time ago? The answer is, of course, a resounding “no” (that is, unless you’re a natural talent and you’re willing to risk a hefty fine). Well, why should tidying be any different? You can’t keep your house in order, says Kondo quite straightforwardly, because you’ve never learned how to do that. 

Case in point: just two decades ago, freshly inspired by a book called "The Art of Discarding" by Nagisa Tatsumi, Kondo had a nervous breakdown (and remained unconscious for two hours!) while trying to organize her home by throwing all the unnecessary stuff away, even though today she is deemed an expert in the field and has her own Netflix show to prove it. Add to this story that she has been around lifestyle magazines ever since the age of five. It was then that she experienced the breakthrough that would eventually take shape as the KonMari method, her very own, personalized – and, mind you, life-changing – form of tidying up.

In essence, two essential actions need to take place: discarding the things you don’t need and deciding where to store the things you need. Furthermore, it is also a one-time, meticulous, and thorough – even if difficult and emotionally draining – process. Contrary to conventional wisdom and most of the advice you’ve heard so far, Kondo doesn’t suggest turning the act of tidying into a habit and getting rid of one unnecessary item a day or cleaning up your room a little at a time. She is also against everything storage experts stand for, calling them “hoarders” and making it clear that merely finding space for what you already own is a sure route to future problems. Tidying must start with discarding, and discarding must be exhaustive and methodical.

“If you use the right method and concentrate your efforts on eliminating clutter thoroughly and completely within a short span of time,” writes Kondo, “you’ll see instant results that will empower you to keep your space in order. Anyone who experiences this process, no matter who they are, will vow never to revert to clutter again.” In other words, dramatic decluttering and instant reorganization of your house causes dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective. It is the only way towards an enduringly organized house and, more importantly, an organized mindset as well. 

Finish discarding first

As we mentioned above, the KonMari method consists of only two tasks – discarding and deciding where to keep things – which must be done in the right order. “Do not even think of putting your things away until you have finished the process of discarding,” writes almost condescendingly Kondo. “Failure to follow this order is one reason many people never make permanent progress.”

In other words, the moment you say something like “I wonder if this will now fit in this drawer” in the middle of the process of discarding – probably elated that you’ve gotten rid of a few useless things – you permanently corrupt the KonMari method and run the risk of plunging yourself headward into a new state of mess and chaos. Though simple, the rule is unbending: only once you’ve finished getting rid of everything you don’t need, you can think about where to put the rest of the things.

But how do you know when you’ve finished off-loading everything you don’t need? After all, we live in a consumerist society, and no one can blame you if, during decluttering, you are overwhelmed by the impression that you need absolutely everything you own, even if you haven’t used some of it for the past seventeen years or so.

To tackle this problem, different experts have proposed various selection criteria such as “discard anything you haven’t used for a year” or “if you can’t decide, pack those items away in a box and look at them again six months later.” Kondo is not one of these experts. According to her, “the moment you start focusing on how to choose what to throw away, you have veered significantly off course.” The trick is to turn the narrative around. Namely, choose what you want to keep, not what you want to rid.

To each item that you own, ask the key question while holding it in your hands: “does this spark any joy?” Keep it if you answered “yes”; if the answer was “no,” immediately dispose of it. According to Kondo, this is not only the simplest but also the most accurate yardstick by which one should judge the real value of an object. It comes with a word of warning though: never, under any circumstance, dare to start with mementos, such as letters or old photographs. This approach spells certain failure, because, absorbed into memories of the past, you’ll be tempted to procrastinate from the beginning or even become too emotional to continue the process altogether. It’s much smarter to start with your clothes – but, then again, that’s a topic for our next section.

Tidying by categories: the tidying order

In Kondo’s experience, people have trouble discarding things that have three types of value:

• Functional value: these are the things you can still use, even if you haven’t for most of your life (such as, your old typewriter).
• Informational value: the things that contain some helpful information (such as, books).
• Emotional value: the things with which you have sentimental ties (say, photographs). 

Moreover, when some of these three types of things are hard to obtain or replace (i.e., they become a rarity), they become even harder to part with. Because of this, the process of deciding what to discard and what to keep must begin with the categories that are easier to make decisions about. The sequence endorsed by Kondo goes thus: clothes first, followed by books, then papers,  “komono” (miscellany) after, and, lastly, mementos. To increase efficiency, all of these categories are further divided into several subcategories, once again, in the ascending order of difficulty:

• Clothes: tops (shirts, sweaters, etc.); bottoms (pants, skirts, etc.); clothes that should be hung (jackets, coats, suits, etc.); socks; underwear; bags (handbags, messenger bags, etc.); accessories (scarves, belts, hats, etc.); clothes for specific events (swimsuits, kimonos, uniforms, etc.); and, finally, shoes.
• Books: general (books you read for pleasure); practical (references, cookbooks, etc.); visual (photograph collections, etc.); and magazines. 
• Papers: lecture materials; credit card statements; warranties; greeting cards; used checkbooks; and payslips.
• Komono: CDs and DVDs; skincare products; makeup; accessories; valuables (passports, credit cards, etc.; electrical equipment and appliances; household equipment; household supplies (expendables like medicine, detergents, tissues, etc.); kitchen goods/food supplies (spatulas, pots, blenders, etc.); and other (spare change, figurines, etc.)
• Mementos: photos; letters; and other.

Tidying by category works like magic

Now, when Kondo speaks about categories, she really means categories. Quite possibly the most common mistake people do when tidying is discarding and organizing things by location. Thinking things such as “I’ll tidy the bedroom first and then move on to the living room” or “I’ll go through my drawers one by one starting from the top down” amounts to nothing short of self-sabotage. You should always – ALWAYS! – think in terms of category, not place.

 In practice, this means collecting everything that falls within a single category at one time and laying it all in one spot. If the category of interest is clothing, then search every room of the house and bring every piece of clothing you have in your home to the same place, spreading all items out on the floor. Then, pick up each outfit, touch it, and see if it sparks joy for you. You know what you should do if it doesn’t.

The method described above is applicable to all of the categories and subcategories listed before. Yes – even books and lecture materials. Even though this might go against everything booklovers stand for, as far as Kondo is concerned, not discarding a book because you “might read it again sometime” is a kind of fetishism. The truth is that – as you probably know already yourself – “sometime” almost always means “never” in the case of unread or once-read books. Even for them, timing is everything. “The moment you first encounter a particular book is the right time to read it,” suggests Kondo. Keeping your collection of books small is the best way to avoid missing that moment. In fact, in her own experience, having fewer books not only makes your house look tidier, but it also increases their impact on your life. 

Not to mention the fact that the fewer items of a category you own, the easier it is to store them in one place, which is yet another important aspect of the KonMari method. Kondo sums it up in this twofold rule: “store all items of the same type in the same place and don’t scatter storage space.” Just like the rule, the objective is dual as well: in addition to the immediate organizational benefits, storing a single category of items at one place also reduces the burden on your memory significantly. Just think about it: even when you don’t know where your violet scarf is, from now on, there will only be  one place you’ll need to search to find it.

The magic of tidying dramatically transforms your life

Now, why would you bother going through all of this effort? After all, you’ve managed to come this far even though your clothes are scattered all around your house, and you constantly discover payslips in the pockets of your jeans. Is it that necessary to tidy your house to perfection?

Kondo has an intriguing answer to that question: “When you’ve finished putting your house in order,” she writes, “your life will change dramatically. Once you have experienced what it’s like to have a truly ordered house, you’ll feel your whole world brighten. Never again will you revert to clutter. This is what I call the magic of tidying. And the effects are stupendous. Not only will you never be messy again, but you’ll also get a new start on life.”

This is the magic Kondo wants to share with as many people as possible. This is the real reason why you need to tidy your house as soon as possible, and it’s not merely symbolic: just as Lady Macbeth or Pontius Pilate wash their hands to clean themselves from guilt quite literally, some people get a bout of diarrhea or a breakout in pimples when they discard everything in one go. “It’s a very strange phenomenon,” says Kondo, “but when we reduce what we own and essentially ‘detox’ our house, it has a detox effect on our bodies as well.”

And the same holds true for your mind too. For example, after throwing away all of the books she didn’t need, one of Kondo’s clients realized that the only books that sparked joy in her life were actually all related to social welfare. So, she quit her job in information technology, went back to school and started a babysitting company. Tidying can do that. You just need to allow it.

Final Notes

As silly as it might sound, for millions of people on this planet, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” is nothing short of a holy book, and the act of putting the KonMari method into practice, a transformative baptizing ritual.

All of its New Age platitudes aside, believe it or not, this no-nonsense how-to book is so practical and useful that, for once, it actually justifies the veneration. It can indeed change your life for the much, much better.

12min Tip

“Tidying is a special event,” Kondo writes. “Don’t do it every day.” Instead, tidy your house in one shot, “as quickly and completely as possible.” And start by discarding: organize the things that spark joy in you only after.